Rate Of Incidence In 5-14 Age Group Up By 31%; Unhealthy Lifestyle To Blame

Even 5-year-olds prone to strokes

London: In a startling finding, a new research has shown that children as young as five years are now having strokes in the US and blamed unhealthy lifestyles as the main reason behind the trend. 

    The stroke rate among five to 44-year-olds has gone up by about a third in the past 10 years, found the researchers at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 
    The researchers, who analysed hospital data of millions of patients between 1995 and 2008, also found that high blood pressure, diabetes and obesity were common in stroke patients, the BBC reported. During this period, the rate of ischemic stroke, which is caused due to blood clots, was found to have gone up by 31% in five to 14-yearolds, from 3.2 strokes per 10,000 hospital cases to 4.2 per 10,000. While, the increase was 30% in people aged 15 to 34 years, it was 37% in patients between the ages of 35 and 44, the researchers found. 
    In all age groups the increase was greater in men than in women, they said. Figures for haemorrhagic stroke, caused by bleeding on the brain, showed decreases in age groups except the five to 14-year-olds, but the researchers said: "The increase in ischemic stroke far outweighs the decreases." 
    Detailing their study in the journal Annals of Neurology, the researchers said the prevalence of hypertension, obesity and tobacco use hadincreased in stroke patients. 
    More than half of 35 to 44-year-olds who had an ischemic stroke also had hypertension, they said. "Urgent public health initiatives are needed to reverse trends in modifiable risk factors associated with stroke in adolescents and young adults," they concluded. Dr Lorna Layward, from the Stroke Association in the UK, said: "People usually associate strokes with older people, but a quarter of all strokes happen to people of working age, and around 400 children have a stroke every year in the UK. PTI 
Bat's saliva can cure stroke victims? 
    The saliva of vampire bats, which feed on blood, can save lives of stroke victims, new research shows. The saliva has a compound that can thin blood and dissolve clots in the brain. Currently, most types of strokes need clot-busting shots within four hours of the attack for effective treatment. But a drug derived from proteins in bats' saliva can have the same effect for up to nine hours. Researchers who carried out a previous smaller study said the drug was "the biggest breakthrough" in stroke treatment in two decades. The difference implies that drug Desmoteplase could be administered to stroke victims while asleep, the Telegraph reports. IANS